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August 31, 2006

Tort Law on Trial

Tort reform has been on the political agenda for some time. Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok make a unique contribution to the debate in their new monograph, Judge and Jury: American Tort Law on Trial (Independent Institute). Continue Reading...
August 31, 2006

Government Money, Government Morality

Rick Ritchie has a thought-provoking post over at Old Solar, deconstructing a rather shrill WorldNetDaily article. In a piece titled, “What!? Caesar’s Money Has Strings Attached?,” Ritchie soberly observes, “When you do accept state funding, the state does have an interest in how its money is used.” Continue Reading...
August 31, 2006

Wealth, Envy, and Happiness

In the modern classic Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, played by Kurt Russell, asks Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday why the sinister Johnny Ringo is so evil: “What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? Continue Reading...
August 30, 2006

Just a Thought on Iran and Thorium

Passed on to me by a friend about a post last week: If a thorium reactor, among other things “created no weapons-grade by-products,” and Iran wants nuclear reactors simply “to establish a complete nuclear fuel cycle to support a civilian energy program,” as it claims, perhaps we could set it up so that potentially dangerous regimes like Iran can use thorium and not uranium based nuclear reactors. Continue Reading...
August 30, 2006

Disaster Video Gaming

Today’s WaPo has a story about Incident Commander, “a training simulator that gives players a lead role in managing crisis situations such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.” In “A Computer Game for Real-Life Crises: Disaster Simulator’s Maker Gives It to Municipal Emergency Departments,” Mike Musgrove writes about the video game software, which was used by an Illinois paradmedic just days before he was called into duty following Hurricane Katrina. Continue Reading...
August 30, 2006

The Real Third Rail in Politics

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Jennifer Roback Morse wonders why no one is talking about the Forbidden Topic in the Social Security debate. That taboo subject is the declining birth rate. Continue Reading...
August 29, 2006

China-Taiwan Trade Spike

Tension between China and Taiwan is one of the more troubling matters in geopolitical affairs. Now AsiaNews reports that trade between China and Taiwas increased by 15 percent in the first half of 2006. Continue Reading...
August 29, 2006

Olasky on Politics and Natural Disasters

I got a copy of Marvin Olasky’s The Politics of Disaster: Katrina, Big Government, and a New Strategy for Future Crisis in the mail today, fittingly enough on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating storm surge. Continue Reading...